Tag:unloading

Roger Federer – Secrets of his Service 3.0

His Service 3.0 is an almost ideal stroke with a high level of the racket stability in the space, thanks also to the underlying helix form. The next main deciding aspect is the (in most cases) nearly perfect body energy unloading against the target based on the well-controlled (targeted) long-axis pronation. The photos below show that (in a contrary to the rather dangerous myths about the necessity to swing the racket by the non-dominant (her left) foot, as preached for decades in most of the tennis books and by most of the tennis coaches), Roger stays....

Serena Williams – Overhead 3.0

In general, the biggest difference from the service action is that while playing the overhead most of the players are using for the racket take-back the faster upper loop. The time-efficient preparation for the overhead consists of three actions ("triple overhead action") being taken almost simultaneously, immediately after a quick initial change of the grip into the backhand/continental position - 1/ pointing at the incoming high ball (lob) with the non-dominant hand, 2/ pivot while stepping back and slightly around with the dominant-side leg/foot and....

Marin Cilic – Potential risk factors in his service

Tall Marin Cilic (*1988 / CRO) belongs not only because of his impressive 198 cm (6'6'') build to the better servers on the ATP Tour. His service (obviously a clear Service 3.0) has also some excellent technical qualities, mainly around the quite often almost perfect pronation. Despite that, a deeper look at the stats shows that Marin's service, for some probably quite surprisingly, doesn't have the efficiency of the very best in the business. Over his entire ATP Tour career up to date, Cilic has just 56% of the 1st services in the game, in comparison Djokovic 65%, Federer...

Marius Copil – Clean Service 3.0

....his service, which I would currently consider as probably the cleanest Service 3.0 with a perfect helix form on the ATP Tour. Copil surely profits in his service from a tall body with long extremities but at 191 cm (6'3'') he can be considered as not that extremely tall player when comparing him to the likes of John Isner, Milos Raonic or Marin Cilic. It was clearly visible in his two-set winning Basel match against the significantly taller top 10 player Marin Cilic (CRO) who brings with his 198 cm (6'6'') even more impressive bodily parameters to the court, that an almost perfect technique leading to an optimal...

Serena Williams – Probably the best female service of all time

Serena's service during the 2018 Wimbledon Championships while also adding few images from far back in 2003. It is interesting to see that her core service fundamentals have been quite the same in 2003 already and this speaks for the quality of her coaching before that. In short, Serena's service is very simple, well-focused at the decisive elements (not quite clear to many in the tennis field) and practically free of any potentially disturbing idiosyncrasies. Some of the main decisive elements to be mentioned are a relaxed balanced starting position, a very stable quite high toss, a delated...

Xiyu Wang – Mistake-prone aggressive forehand

Wang has an almost ideal tennis body with long extremities. For her age, she has already quite highly developed tactical varieties and is well capable of an attacking all-court game, which she applied quite successfully also during her recent US Open campaign. Her overall tactical possibilities are then in my opinion slightly limited by certain technical weaknesses in her strokes. In this article, I would like to look at her forehand. Wang is playing her forehand in a very aggressive manner, but this stroke is prone to rather frequent mistakes, mainly due to the...

Denis Shapovalov – Powerful 1st service 3.0

From the strokes, the service belongs to one of Shapovalov's strengths, but small improvements (part of the Tennis 3.0 Code seem to be missing) could probably make this leftie service to an even more of a constant weapon. Below, I am showing some of Denis' services at both the 2017 French and the 2017 US.Open. The opening of the racket...

Reilly Opelka – Rather troubled forehand

Below, I am comparing Reilley's forehands at these two above mentioned events. I am surely aware that the coordination and an exact footwork are challenging at Reilly's size, but what I am focusing at is the way how he approaches the given strokes as this gives me certain information about the mental image of the stroke in his mind. In the case of an optimal "3 Step Tennis Stroke Regulation", the player puts the priority at the creation....

Julia Goerges – Dangerous Service 3.0

While looking at Julia's stokes, the service, despite certain rather complicated looking idiosyncratic action in the takeback, must be considered as her biggest weapon. Besides Julia's almost ideal body build with long extremities, mainly two aspects play a big role here: perfect...

Catherine Bellis – Forehand 3.0 with potential

Below, I am comparing Catherine's forehand during her 3rd round match at the 2014 Orange Bowl (against Shiskina / USA - the first tie-break set was very tight there) and her forehand in a practice match against Kayla Day (USA) during the 2017 French Open. At her example is then also quite well possible to explain the certain mystery of the stances.....